Wakeboard Rope Mount for GoPro - Wakeboard Lifestyle

I just recently bought a GoPro Hero9 Black so I can start filming my wakeboarding. I’ve been looking into all sorts of mounts and angles trying to decide what would be the best way for me to record myself on the wakeboard. People have tried all different sorts of things to get the best shot of their respective water sports, such as:

Mounting the camera on the back of the boat? Too far away.
Mounting the camera on your board? Too much leg action. Can’t really see the air time or tricks being performed.
POV helmet mount? Can’t even tell what is going on, lots of head movement.
Have somebody ride with you and record? Kind of dangerous and super hard to record well while simultaneously wakeboarding.

I thought all these ideas were decent, but not ideal. Then I came across this YouTube video: GoPro Wakeboard Mount for WaterSports.

This guy calls himself ZenTen and he is a GoPro and water sports/outdoors enthusiast. He has been working on a mounting design so your GoPro can ride on the rope and capture your whole body and board at a close up angle. This allows you to get some insanely good looking shots of you wakeboarding. The picture at the top of this article is taken from Shaun Murray’s YouTube video: Best camera angle ever? Wakeboarding in UNREAL CONDITIONS. The guy ZenTen actually shipped him one of his custom made mounts for that video and it blew me away.

Once I saw how cool this looked, I had to have it. I wasn’t going to settle for any other mount.

Where to Find

I searched the internet up, down and sideways for where the hell to buy one of these things and I couldn’t find anything, I started to think they didn’t exist. Before I gave up, however, I contacted him directly through his YouTube channel to see if he was still working on designing these, or if it was a lost cause. He messaged me saying he 3D prints these wakeboard rope mounts out of his home and sells them off his website. Talk about small scale. The best part though, he had 2 in stock he had just finished. I bought one right away.

Here is the link to get yours: ZenTen 3D Printed Wakeboard Rope Mount

He lives in Arizona, as do I, so I ordered it on Monday and got it on Thursday, super quick and painless. Here are some pictures of the thing:

Functionality

Honestly, I just received this mount last week, so I haven’t been able to get out on the water and test it yet, but I will soon. It seems to be durable and well made enough to stay together in the water. It is supposed to stay upright even when you go inverted because of the heavy counterweights on the sides and bottom (even though keeping the camera upright isn’t necessarily a problem if you have the 360 degree horizon leveling feature that the Max Lens Mod offers). My only concern is that I think it might sink my rope handle, which would be a problem because the GoPro is only waterproof up to 33 feet; I ride with a 65 foot rope. I think I may just buy a couple foam rope floaties and attach them close to where I put the mount to keep it above water.

I am super stoked to get out and try this thing. I will write a follow up article with some shots that I get on the water and I will review this mount’s full performance. Cheers!

Edit: I wrote the follow up article, see “Related Articles” below.